


It's Only Pleasure

by azryal



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Drugged Sex, Multi, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Rare Pairings, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 16:58:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azryal/pseuds/azryal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He had no strength, no will to move, so he closed his eyes and let them drag him onward. He didn’t open them again until he felt himself falling and then he gasped. The ground didn’t rush to meet him, though, for he landed against the solid, wide expanse of Leif’s chest. He rested between the man’s long, outstretched legs, his own lifted and parted to drape over them. Arne settled there on his knees and leaned over him.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <i>“Pleasure, Athelstan,” Leif reminded him, lips moving from his ear down his neck. “Only pleasure.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Only Pleasure

It was a giant. _So tall_...Athelstan thought as his eyes moved up and up and up.

Tall and gentle. So wonderfully, shockingly gentle as he lifted Athelstan from the forest floor.

“Leif…” The word trailed off. It took another breath for him to remember what he’d meant to say. “If you let me go…I will fall again.”

His arms were squeezed. A comfort. “No, the gods will hold you.”

“And…if they don’t?” Athelstan asked him, fingers anxiously twisting into the man’s tunic.

“Then I will be here to catch you,” Leif answered. He grinned. “But you will have to let go to find out.”

Athelstan looked down, slowly released the knotted, gathered cloth in his hands. “Oh, yes. I’m…”

And he was standing then, alone, without the strength and comfort he’d felt in Leif’s grip. The man smiled at him and started to move on, but Athelstan turned. Too quickly, and his legs did not turn with him. True to his words, Leif was there, ready to catch him before he fell.

“Wait,” he said, hands clasping in the man’s clothes again. “Please, can you…please…take me…?” He stopped, had to squeeze his eyes shut to battle the dizziness he felt.

Leif rumbled. No. _he laughed_. It sounded like…like the earth moved. “Take you? I would be happy to take you, Athelstan, but I do not think that is what you want.”

“…what…?” So confused. He was so confused. And thirsty. Where was Ragnar? Why was it so _loud_?

Then, what he’d said…what Leif had said…no, that wasn’t right. He tried to think. What did he say? The world swam around him once more and he listed sharply.

“Easy, there, careful,” Leif said, steering him back to center and holding him steady. He cupped Athelstan’s chin and lifted his face. Athelstan could hardly focus on his eyes for the feel of his hand. “You look unwell. Come, let’s find you some water.”

“Quiet,” Athelstan tried again to say it. “I need…please…I’m so hot.”

Leif just smiled and patted his cheek.

There was another journey through the crowd, the fires, the music and laughter and shouting and copulation of the men and women…so many men…

“And make thy sons…go a-whoring…after their gods.” Athelstan was happy to have one clear, complete thought, but it was forgotten in the next moment. He was turned too quickly and his vision did not right itself until he was held firm within Leif’s arms.

The man was smiling at him. “Yes! For our gods, we celebrate life, Athelstan.”

“I don’t know what…don’t understand.” It was growing harder to speak, even when his mind could find words and use them. His mouth was dry and his neck felt as if he’d lost all his bones. He closed his eyes and felt more rumbling against his forehead.

Leif ran a palm from the back of his head, his bent neck, and even farther. It stopped low on his back. Too low. But Athelstan couldn’t make his neck work so he stayed there, resting against Leif’s chest.

“We lie together, joyously, to celebrate life. It is a gift and we are grateful. To show our gratitude and give our thanks we make sacrifices. We sacrifice our animals, our blood, and we sacrifice our seed to this night, with no thought of sons or honor. We do it merely for the pleasure of our gods’ eyes upon us.”

Athelstan shook his head. He couldn’t speak.

Leif’s hand slid up his back and down again. It felt so good he shivered. “They give us these pleasures, Athelstan.” The other hand slipped under his chin and raised his head. Leif’s eyes were dark and the light from the flames around them caused them to gleam like the black shining knives they used to spark their fires. “It would be disrespectful not to take them, when you can.”

The words filtered through the haze, the disorientation. “I see…I think…”

Though it seemed he still stared up at Leif’s face, he felt breath on his lips. Did the man move closer? “It’s only pleasure, Athelstan.”

And then Leif pressed their mouths together in a kiss. It was brief. It was soft. It scared him. Stole his air. Confused him even more and he shivered again. “Leif…”

“Shh,” the man breathed and Athelstan felt it blow through him. His head was tilted back farther, his jaw held firmly but carefully, and then he was drowning. Leif’s lips covered his again and this time they were parted, fitting over his own to let their breaths mingle. He cried out when he felt Leif’s tongue slither past his teeth, but it sounded so distant. It was quieted by the din in his head, a pulsing, rhythmic sound that thrummed so loud it made him weak.

When his knees gave way, Leif caught him again. One arm went around his waist and held him so tightly that Athelstan could feel the crush of the man’s wide leather belt into his ribs. _A giant_ , he thought, as he wilted in the embrace. Leif held the back of his head and pushed his tongue in deeper. Athelstan thought he felt his feet leave the ground.

“So,” said a bright, falsely cheerful voice close to them, “what does he taste like?”

Leif’s laugh moved through Athelstan’s body, a tremor that he felt clear to his toes. Which were indeed dangling a bit above the forest floor. Leif lowered him but did not let him go.

“Like wine and honey, with a touch of spring lamb,” the man answered. His beard, fuller and more resplendent than his own, bristled and tickled Athelstan’s mouth.

Arne stepped closer, frowning. “You didn’t wait for me.”

“You were taking too long.”

“You were too fast. She wasn’t finished.”

“Nor was I, but I was lead elsewhere. I followed.” Leif smiled down at Athelstan.

He looked between the two of them. He didn’t understand what they meant, could hardly make sense of anything, anymore. He put his hands on Leif’s shoulders and pushed. “I need…I have to…let…go…”

Leif opened his arms and he collapsed, but found his fall stopped by another embrace.

“Oh, yes, you do,” Arne laughed next to his ear. The man’s voice had taken on a husky depth, directly opposite his normal, airy tone. Hands flattened over Athelstan’s ribs, digging in a little to keep him standing.

“Where’s Ragnar?” Athelstan asked, with a quiver.  Yes, he needed to find Ragnar. He would be fine if he could get to Ragnar. “Just…help me find him…please.”

Arne grinned and even in profile it stretched the scar on his face. It should have made him ugly, frightening, but no…they joy he took from life shone in his smile and the clarity of his one eye. That eye turned up to his friend. “He has the arms of two strong men to hold him and he asks for Ragnar.”

“Please, I…can’t think…I don’t feel…”

“Hush, now. We’ll take you somewhere quiet, get you water,” Leif was saying, brushing his fingers across his face. They came away, wet. Was he crying? Why was he crying?

“I hate this place,” Athelstan whispered, but neither man heard him as they guided him.

Arne had an arm around his waist and kept up a low, steady murmur of profanity. He conjured images that Athelstan alternately blanched and blushed over. Leif would rumble his deep laughter. Athelstan felt it in his bones and when he glanced up at the man, he could see the smile on his face. It was a nice face and a gentle smile, but the eyes were different. Something in them reminded him of his first sight of the man, standing in the sanctuary with his ax in hand, staring covetously at the requaliries.

It was want. It was _desire._

He wasn’t unfamiliar with it now. He’d been subject it often since these raw and wild people had taken him. Ragnar looked at him as if he would devour him whole. Lagertha still cast him glances when she thought he wasn’t looking. Even today he’d been stared at by all of them, some with a sort of reverence, some sweetly longing, and some with open heat. He remembered Rollo’s eyes as he’d held up the plate of mushrooms… _oh, mushrooms_ ….that was how he got this way…those cursed mushrooms.

He wondered if Ragnar had eaten any.

“No, no, no,” Arne cajoled, pulling him more firmly.

He’d tried to draw away, let his weight pull him from Arne’s grip. Leif put an arm around his back and helped drag him farther into the darkness. Farther into the quiet forest. Farther from Ragnar. “Oh, wait…”

“Come on now, a little more,” Arne whispered.

He had no strength, no will to move, so he closed his eyes and let them drag him onward. He didn’t open them again until he felt himself falling and then he gasped. The ground didn’t rush to meet him, though, for he landed against the solid, wide expanse of Leif’s chest. He rested between the man’s long, outstretched legs, his own lifted and parted to drape over them. Arne settled there on his knees and leaned over him.

“Pleasure, Athelstan,” Leif reminded him, lips moving from his ear down his neck. “Only pleasure.”

Arne’s mouth was on his then and he wanted to turn away, say no. Instead, he discovered that kisses were different and for a moment he was transfixed. This was not as Leif’s was, a gentle exploration. Arne’s kiss was hot and hard, with one hand slipping into his hair to tug almost too rough and the other finding the laces of his belt. He went limp, moaning as fingers traced up his stomach to his chest and shouting when they closed on his nipples. He felt the pull at his trouser lacings next and tried to push it from him.

Only to have both his wrists taken and held, pulled back and away so far his chest arched up. Arne still kissed him, relentlessly. Demanding. Taking every sound into his mouth and rewarding them with more touching. Leif was at his neck and shoulder, tasting every inch left bare and pale by the too-wide neck of his tunic. Teeth scraped his skin, the beard scratched over the scrapes and he shuddered.

_Ragnar._

_Where are you?_

Athelstan’s mind was wiped clean of thought when Arne’s fingers wrapped around his cock.

“By the gods!” the man cried. “The little one has a mighty weapon!”

Lief rumbled again. “ _You_ are calling _him_ little?”

Arne squeezed and Athelstan arched into his hand. “Shut up, you troll. He’s a child, for all his posturing. He’s never felt a pull on his cock, much less a fuck in a hole. He’s never spilled blood. So, yes, I call him little.” He squeezed again and Athelstan yelled.

“Look at him, how he wants it.”

Athelstan felt Leif’s chin settle on his shoulder as Arne gave a tug. And another.

“You’ve a lovely cock, priest,” Arne was murmuring, watching his face. “I will treat it proper, have no fear.”

This time the tug was accompanied by a twist.

Before the fifth Athelstan was groaning and thrusting, his head back and resting against Leif’s neck. “Oh…God…wait…”

The thrumming in his ears became a pounding, like a thousand drums striking as one. He felt his body seize, tight and hard, and then he felt his insides burning, melting, and funneling down to shoot out of him. Then it was over, is insides were outside and wet all over his stomach, leaving him empty and weary and buzzing in his fingers and toes.

“ _Athelstan_ ,” Leif whispered, reverently. “You _are_ untouched. Ragnar did not play us for fools.”

Still too drained to speak, Athelstan heard only the name. “Ragnar…”

“Was untouched, and fuck Ragnar. He’s a damned fool. He’s not here. He offered you up to any who would spoil your precious purity,” Arne growled. He yanked at Athelstan’s boots, then his trousers, stripping him completely bare with the shedding of his tunic next. Shivering, Athelstan watched as the man impatiently tore at his own belt and tunics and tossed them aside. “I will make you forget him. You’ll not call his name, anymore.”

Arne then went on his hands and knees, lowering his head with his mouth open and his tongue wetting his lips. Athelstan felt a blast of icy fear for an instant, thinking the man meant to bite him, but all he felt was warm breath and wet swipes on his stomach. His eyes widened, never looking away as he was cleaned free of his own seed. When all traces of it were gone, Arne rose and crawled closer. Athelstan could see the gathered come gleaming wetly on his tongue as he bent to take Leif’s mouth.

The giant groaned. He released Athelstan’s wrists to grab Arne’s head and deepen the kiss. Athelstan turned his head and saw his come smearing between them, spreading like a silvery veil around their lips. He made a soft sound, perhaps a whimper, and they separated to look at him. Arne grinned.

“You taste like Midsummer, priest,” and he kissed Athelstan then, forcing the remaining traces of come into Athelstan’s mouth. “Like tilled earth and green grass and smoke.”

“Like plum wine and sweet bread,” Leif said in his ear. “You are both spring _and_ summer, unbroken and waiting for the plow as is spring, and ready to take action, to ride swift and sure as is summer.”

Athelstan stared. He was breathless. Such words. Such poetry. He would have never believed these men capable if he had not been subject to it.

Leif smiled, first at him, then at Arne. “Get him hard again, _dvergr._ We shall see him ride tonight.”

The image of Lagertha astride Ragnar appeared in Athelstan’s mind. He felt Arne shift and Leif move, but he was seeing only her movements, hearing their joined voices as they grunted and sighed. His body responded to the memory, stirring warm and sticky low in his belly. As he was laid back on the ground he closed his eyes and listened.

There was a slithering as belts and straps were pulled free. The rustle of cloth and the squeak of leather. Lagertha’s high, trembling wail as she rocked back onto her husband’s thighs and Ragnar’s strained groan when he stiffened and clutched her bottom. Then his own cries joined the sounds, for his cock was engulfed by hot, wet softness.

He looked down and saw Arne between his legs, the man’s lips working his foreskin. His eye was a spark in the night, gleaming like fire on dark water. He suckled, pushed the point of his tongue in between the loose and his quickly hardening flesh and Athelstan gasped. Arne laughed around him and it made him shudder and moan. Athelstan’s eyes closed on their own as his head fell back. His fingers dug into the dirt and needles and though he was unclothed, naked beneath the stars, he began to sweat.

An arm slid beneath his head and he was kissed again. The gentle, teasing touch of Leif’s tongue coaxed his out to twine and twist together with Leif’s own. One of the giant’s hands stroked his neck, his chest, his stomach and then grasped the base of Athelstan’s cock. Arne’s mouth left him but before he could voice a protest, Leif’s hand began a steady, firm rhythm that had him writhing in the dirt. When Arne took the head, only the head, Leif’s fingers made room and they worked him together.

Athelstan was yelling again, half nonsense and half pleas in both their languages. There was a burning, hard press against his thigh and it moved, slid across his skin. He knew what it was even before Leif took Athelstan’s hand from between them. Their fingers laced together and wrapped around the man’s heavy, thick cock. Without prompting, he held it firm, taking pleasure in the feel of it against his palm, the crisp hair scratching at his knuckles.

“So…receptive… _gods_ , your master is an _idiot_ ,” Leif breathed, thrusting into his grip.

His master? Athelstan did not want to think of his master. He wanted more of this. Of flesh and sweat and the sin that prickled his conscious as it fired his flesh. “Make me forget,” Athelstan begged, his first real words since they’d brought him here. His first full thought since the intoxication began. He opened his eyes and saw the surprised look on Leif’s face. It was mirrored in Arne’s. “You promised,” he insisted.

They moved him to their liking. They had to, for his muscles were so liquid he could hardly hold up his own head. Leif lay on his back and Arne put Athelstan atop him, straddling the man’s hips and resting face down on his chest. While Leif kissed him, stroked his hair and his sides, Arne knelt behind him and put a hand low on his back.

Slick fingers rubbed behind his balls, stroking the skin with enough pressure to make it warm. Athelstan groaned into Leif’s mouth at the touch. His hips gave a tiny jerk when the pressure increased, causing a sudden spark deep in his groin. His cock slid against Leif’s stomach and the two sensations threatened to overwhelm him. At least until Arne’s fingers moved up, into the crevice of his ass.

“Mmph!” His shocked denial was muffled and swallowed. Leif’s arms closed around him and held tight.

“Easy, there, pretty one,” Arne soothed, his fingers spreading more oil. Teasing. Pushing.

Pushing  _in_.

Athelstan jolted. He put his palms to the earth and pushed, but Leif’s arms kept him close.

“Unbroken, gods, how could he stand it?” Arne muttered. He used those two fingers to stretch Athelstan open, to prod and pry his muscles loose, and then they were through. All the way inside of him.

Leif released his mouth to let him catch his breath. Athelstan let his head rest on the man’s shoulder, open-mouthed and panting. Arne’s fingers went deeper and he gasped, his own digging into the dirt. It wasn’t pain he felt, exactly, but it was so foreign, so unexpected. He couldn’t name it.

“I don’t…think…I like this,” he whispered.

Arne did something, twisted his hand or changed his angle, and Athelstan jumped. He did it again and Athelstan’s whole body felt it. His head came up, flung back on a cry.

“No?” Arne asked, laughing. He withdrew part way and deftly added a third finger.

The touch this time was scalding, like lightning struck from Thor’s hammer sent to burn his blood. Athelstan’s eyes closed. His jaw went loose. His cry was high-pitched and soft, breathy with surprise and confusion.

Arne chuckled, darkly. “I think you do.”

Leif laughed, too. “If we don’t stretch you, it will hurt.”

Athelstan lowered his head, tucking his face into Leif’s neck. He was conflicted now that the moment was upon him. He had not forgotten his master; his face was all he saw behind his closed eyes. And he was frightened. More frightened than he had been when the lights began to swirl. More than when Ragnar left him alone. More even than the moment he knew what these two men wanted. He was as terrified as he’d been that last day at Lindisfarne.

He began to shake.

Arne leaned over him then, brushing Leif’s arms out of the way so that his chest was on Athelstan’s back. He dropped kisses across his shoulders. “It will be easier if I go first,” he whispered.

 _First?_  That they would both…he would be…

This had never occurred to him. He would be taken by  _both_  men, one following the other. So common, so… _whorish_. “Oh, God,” he whimpered.

Neither of them responded except to hold him more firmly. Arne’s wicked fingers left him. The press of the man’s cock replaced them. “Take a breath, Athelstan, and hold it.”

He did as Arne instructed, biting his lip as the press became entry. All the air left him in a rush that became a scream. Arne reared back and thrust and he sobbed. Leif was petting him, his hair and his neck, his tense and trembling thighs. Leif lifted his head and kissed him, deeply, hungrily, and groaned with him as Arne rocked forward.

“You…feel…so good…ah, Mother Frigga, that this should be mine,” Arne was himself moaning, his fingers clenching on Athelstan’s hips to hold him steady. He could feel the man’s mouth on his back, between his shoulders, lips vibrating on the low and throaty sound. “Arch your back, Athelstan. Like this.”

Arne pushed at his waist with one hand, held his hips high with the other. On the next thrust, lightning flashed behind his eyes. He tossed his head back and cried out.

“There,” Arne purred, rocking into him slowly. “That’s it.”

Leif was kissing his neck. “Listen to your body. It is of the earth and the earth is of the gods. Listen, and Freyr will guide you. Let us be his tools.”

Athelstan squeezed his eyes shut. He rallied against the cacophony in his head. He listened. He waited. It was slow to come, for there was still pain and doubt, but there was something stirring within him. His mind, so long concerned with the sanctity of his spirit, went quiet and something old and ravenous began to rise from its sleep. He let it. Let it wake and rage and hunger and take him completely. When his body demanded he move, he rolled his hips back in time with Arne’s thrusts. When his mouth grew dry, he wet it on Leif’s tongue.

“ _Ah!_   _Ah!_  Mother! Allfather! Your sacred…grove…is  _blessed_ ,” Arne grunted. He was moving faster and harder now, his fingertips were points of near pain where they drove into his hips. Athelstan heard him groan and the suddenly vicious snap of his hips, the falter of his deep driving rhythm, made Athelstan whimper.

Arne fell forward, lying over him. He was caught between the two men, his cock still hard and leaking. He felt kisses scatter across his back again and shivered, for his skin was afire and too tender at every point. Arne’s beard scratched and his lips soothed and Athelstan could not stop himself from rutting against Leif’s stomach.

The giant grunted. He sounded pained. “Arne, oil me.”

Athelstan raised his head and kissed Leif again as fleeting brushes of slippery hands teased the backs of his thighs. Leif shuddered. His body seemed to undulate beneath Athelstan. There was the thump of something heavy against his ass and it slithered between his cheeks. It was burning, branding hot iron and Athelstan was torn between fearing its girth and wanting it to tear him apart.

Arne covered him once more and wrapped an arm around his chest. “Up, now,” he urged in a whisper.

Athelstan pushed on his trembling arms. Arne’s strength held him, guided him, until he sat squarely upon Leif’s cock. He couldn’t stop the frightened mewl that came from his lips. It was daunting, the width alone spread his cheeks and it ran in a scalding line from the dip of ass to the base of his own balls. “Shh,” Arne breathed, stroking him to full hardness once more. His chest was wet with sweat, pressed against Athelstan’s back. “You’ll take it. You’ll  _want_  it.”

Large hands covered the marks made by Arne’s fingers. They gripped hard and lifted him. Athelstan had to prop himself, placing his dirty palms on Leif’s chest and locking his elbows. “Go slow and remember, only pleasure,” Leif said. He flashed a small smile. “Seek it for yourself.”

Arne held the head of Leif’s cock steady at his hole and Leif relaxed his grip. Athelstan’s shaky limbs could not support his weight and he dropped, too fast, before he could be caught.

“ _Ahno!_ ” He shrieked, trying to fling himself from his seat.

“Okay, okay,” Arne said into his ear, his arm tightening around his waist. “I will help. Hush.”

He was lowered another inch. It was too much. “I can’t!” Athelstan cried.

Leif dug his fingers in once more and before he could wail, protest, or pray, thrust up into Athelstan’s waiting body. Then it was Arne who let him go and his descent was stopped only by Leif’s thighs. He could not speak or cry out. He could not think. He was splitting into halves, like wood beneath an axe.

“Take a breath,” Arne said, tweaking one of his nipples. Hard enough to make him gasp.  Then he switched sides. “Take another.”

Arne continued to pinch and twist with one hand while the other wrapped around his cock again. Soon, he was gasping, arching, twitching forward to thrust against the man’s palm. Leif groaned and he clutched at Athelstan’s hips in spasms. The man's lip was bitten and his eyes screwed shut with the effort of holding still.

“All right now?” Arne asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. He rose on his knees, taking Athelstan with him. They lowered. “That’s it.”

“Come on, Athelstan,” Arne coaxed. “Put your weight on him and lean forward. He can bear it. Like a horse, see?”

Athelstan didn’t see. Or hear. He could only feel the slide of flesh and the surge of scalding pleasure.

They rose and lowered again. Arne gave the edge of his foreskin a sharp tug. He lurched forward and came down at a different angle. It made him shudder and rock back. Hard.

 _“Ohhhhh…gods_ ,” Leif moaned.

“Good, good,” Arne whispered, lifting. As they lowered, he pulled Athelstan’s hips back against his. This brought a new set of sensations that forced a high wail out of him. “Ride as if you sit astride a stallion, barely broken to the bit. Show him how to move with you. Tame his wild spirit.”

The unfamiliar hunger that had driven Athelstan before reared, just as a stallion would. He let it have its head to run free. His body knew now where the pleasure was and he chased it, rocking and bouncing on Leif’s body with abandon. It was not long before the giant answered him, matching gait and speed even as they altered to Athelstan’s design. Arne still held him from behind, rising and falling with him while a hand worked magic on his cock and mouth left marks on his neck and shoulders.

He was shouting with every thrust, crying out with each stride. He could hear himself but couldn’t stop, and he didn’t want to. He tossed his head as the lightning began to streak through his body, all the way to his fingertips, to his toes and let loose a scream when it eclipsed everything around him. He felt no dirt nor sweat, heard no drum nor song nor laugh. All he knew was white heat and throbbing joy and his senses faded to black.

They returned slowly. They brought first the oversensitive parts of him, now being pounded relentlessly from below him. Then the sting of bites covering his throat and the fist clutched painfully in his hair. He felt the bruised and aching joints at his hips protest when they were gripped too tight. But nothing diluted the pleasure still thrumming through him. If he’d wanted them to stop he’d not have been able to ask. He was limp in Arne’s arms, moved and immobile, moaning softly as Leif thrust one last time and finally found release deep inside him.

He was lowered to rest in Leif’s great arms, his ear pressed to listen to the heart beating within. Arne stretched out beside them and raised his hand to Leif’s lips. Athelstan watched, exhausted and wordless, as the giant cleaned his come from the other man’s fingers. They took turns kissing him, then each other, and showed no inclination to dress or hurry away.

“I must find a suitable sacrifice in thanks,” Leif murmured, tracing his mouth with a fingertip. “This was a gift most unexpected.”

“Surely-“ Athelstan began. He had to stop to clear his throat and, still, it was a whisper that came out. “Surely not worth a sacrifice.”

Leif grinned and clucked him under the chin. “You think not? Virgins are not as plenty as you would like to believe.”

“And few are as comely as you,” Arne teased, poking him in the side.

Athelstan blushed.

“Come on, then,” Arne continued, leaping to his feet. He stretched his arms over his head and cracked his neck. “Let’s get cleaned up. And find a drink.”

“I don’t think I can walk,” Athelstan said, softly.

“Would you like me to carry you back into camp?” Leif asked, his hands slipping low to cup his thighs.

The image was clear in Athelstan’s head when he shook it. “No! No, that….won’t be necessary. Thank you.”

He struggled to find his feet. Struggled with his leggings and boots. When it came time to don his tunic, Arne took one look at him and frowned. “What is it?”

The man stepped closer and tugged the garment farther to the right. His left side still stung from Arne’s teeth. “There. Can’t see a thing. If Ragnar would get you clothes that fit proper, you’d have no trouble.”

Oh.  _Oh._

Arne laughed at his face. “Forgot, did you?” He kissed Athelstan soundly and laughed again. “Never let it be said that I don’t keep my promises!”

Though Athelstan didn’t join in their laughter, he felt his smile stretch across his burning face.

**Author's Note:**

> This was Tauna's fault. Blame her.


End file.
